Lockdown Diary - Monday 19th April 2021

Trying to move forwards with things, whilst not pushing my luck so as to risk my recovery.  Though I'm definitely getting better, the pace of recovery seems to have slowed a little or maybe I'm just more conscious of how my insides feel now, not sure which. I'm going to have to keep a close eye on this as the week progresses.

I do find it frustrating having the time to do things, but having to hold back whilst I wait for things to improve.

It's time to change my bed and so I have to get some help stripping it, getting the washing on and hanging it out. It seems strange directing my sons to do these things, but needs must. One of the side effects of my wife's rather powerful antibiotics means I have some additional washing to do, or rather to get my sons to do.

Just before midday the community matron plus one arrived to check my wife over and see how the antibiotics are doing, ideally with a view to stopping them. Unfortunately the tests suggest she's not quite won the battle yet, so she'll stay on the antibiotics until Wednesday evening. The matron will return before the weekend to see how things are. Fingers crossed.

Recent events, largely undocumented other than obliquely in these posts, have given me pause to consider the future.  I've become so used to taking each day as it comes, largely because of my wife's illness, which is unpredictable and where nothing can be taken for granted, that I haven't stopped to think about me and my future.  Since the darkest days of 2018, one of the outcomes of a long period of counselling, was that I should learn to accept that my journey and my wife's are not going to be the same. I think I half took that in, but lately I've come to realise I've only been paying it lip service, at best. I am still finding it very difficult to untangle my vines from hers, but I need to start doing it.  One thing I need to do is work out how to make the most of the rest of my life. This is still a very hard thing. Obviously I'm not going to abandon my wife, but I do need to lay the foundations for a future without her.  I can't just spend every day as if this is how it will be forever, nor can I really live like that.  There is unfulfilled potential that's being lost and I can't carry on as if I have forever, especially as I still have my health (which seems a little bit of a joke at the moment) and vitality. Who knows how long that will last. I am taking steps to create a plan for the next few years, the first of which I've taken today This operation, my third in two years (admittedly the first didn't work, hence the second), has brought all this to a focus. Heavy, man.

After lunch I finished reading the current issue of the Idler and, as always, Stewart Lee's music column has unearthed more leftfield gems I must explore. I read most of it sat in / pacing the garden in the sun - the first time I've been out for during this brief warm interlude.

In the evening I found time to listen to an album for the first time in a while, the album being 'Access Denied' by Asian Dub Foundation.  Good choice.

Over dinner we watched the first episode of the BBC drama 'The Serpent', which I've been wanting to watch for ages, given it's partly based on the book 'Bad Blood: The Life and Crimes of Charles Sobhraj' by Richard Neville (of 'Oz' fame) and Julie Clarke, which I read many years ago when it was first published in paperback.

The wonderful escape of sleep follows.

Asian Dub Foundation / 'Swarm' / 'Access Denied'

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